a blog about faith, hope, and mostly love

contentment

Editor’s Note: The following is partly in response to this blog post. The author began a long and tedious comment reply on the blog and decided the better of it. We at robinjester dot wordpress dot com do hope that the folks at barrycooper dot com appreciate this decision.

It isn’t that I am uber content. People often remark that I seem “happy” – I immediately have an image of a dog waging her tail, tongue flapping about just moments after being wacked on the head with a leash but completely and totally forgetting all about it. Squirrel!

I guess I am happy, sure. I like to think of myself as more of the dog than the cat, not overly stressed out and appreciative of every kind gesture. The book on cat and dog theology comes to mind. It’s pretty good at the analogy of how we tend to think everyone owes us and aren’t surprised when people sing our praises because we are awesome. Much like a cat who could or could not be bothered with humans at all.

There are some ways that I snap out of any discontentment I ever do feel. Ice cream, serving others, visiting someone more depressed than me, and booze. Not necessarily in that order and sometimes simultaneously. There are days when I lock myself in my apartment and I bang on my keyboard, singing at the top of my lungs – probably Alanis Morisette or Fiona Apple songs – and curse like a sailor – usually to Pogues songs – and I feel so much better about life.

But in all seriousness, I know better than to think that any one else has it any better than me. No matter how happy and cheerful a person is, there’s always something. And if not right now, wait a couple days.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Life sucks and blows. Sometimes simultaneously. But the glory and the hope of my life is that it all works together. I have nothing if I don’t have that. Everything I have ever done and experienced comes to fruition through my purpose in life and the hope of the Gospel. I am IN LOVE with the hope of the Gospel and the glory that God allows me to see in my life, thinking about from whence I have come and none too soon. When I start to complain, I am reminded of what I’ve been through and what loved ones are going through now and, most importantly, how the story ends. And I am blessed.

The root issue of course is trust. Do I really believe God has given me all I need and withholds nothing good from me right now? Do I believe for a FACT that I am exactly where I am meant to be and that in due time all will be clear? I am nearly 39 years old and I am single and childless. It is easy to dwell on these three things. As a woman I feel like a waste and have missed my calling in life, which as we know is to pop out kidlets. As a human being I feel like I am unlovable and not worthy *enough* of someone’s time and energy to date, let alone any overtures of love and commitment. These are the things that go through the collective thoughts of single people every where.

As a Christian, I know that the choices I’ve made up til now God has used to bring me here. I know that I am doing some good in where I’ve been placed and doing my best to bloom where planted. I know that God has directed my steps and when I do entrust to Him what is rightfully His, beautiful amazing things happen.

But it’s just as easy to devolve into Sarai of Genesis and start scheming – hey we need a kid. Husband, come sleep with my maid. oh right, I don’t have a maid. Let me go hire a maid. And then let me drop kick her out of my house for getting too big for her britches!

But I digress.

We plot and scheme. We make our plans. We do not stay idle. We work and we use the faculties we have. And sometimes sneak into the faculty lounge.

And then at the end of the day, we rest and drift off to sleep with thoughts of how glorious the day when all is revealed, when the journey is over and we see back over the road where all the detours and gaping pot holes and muddy ditches avoided in our lives come into perspective. I have the feeling we won’t ask why then.

But for now, we ask. We cry into our pillows. Sometimes we laugh. Sometimes we count stars. And we wait for a sign or a moment of clarity. Sometimes we see Mars and Venus. And we think how special… For them. Haha. And bitterness could easily sneak into the faculty lounge with us. But I won’t let it. Bitterness is an ugly weed, not even a pretty flowery weed. It’s lethal and ugly. And I refuse to give in to it.

Also this… has… nothing… to do with this… but it’s about beer… and the equation of bitterness…